Television crime dramas

SIGNIFICANCE: Television crime dramas have evolved to reflect real changes in society and audience expectations, but the real world of criminal justice has always been, and continues to be, more mundane than the televised depictions that have shaped public views of American criminal justice.

Broadcast television is essentially a creation of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and since its inception, televised crime dramas have been significant sources of information about crime and policing for large numbers of citizens. Many citizens have limited contacts with real criminal justice professionals and tend to get their ideas about police work and crime from television. Indeed, the types of affluent viewers sought by prime-time television advertisers are probably the segment of the population with the least direct experience with serious and violent crime, and they are thus the same segment of the population that derives its understanding of crime through media sources.

The proportion of broadcasting time that television devotes to dramas about “cops and criminals” far outweighs the prevalence of either in the population. Television audiences thus may form more concrete impressions about this side of life than they do about other professions and other social problems.

Television Versus Other Media

The ways in which police work is depicted in television dramas differ from depictions in films, books, and television news coverage. For example, American films and detective novels, from the 1930s onward, generally depicted a morally corrupt world in which police officers and private detectives operate. Police detectives, other government agents, victims, witnesses, and criminals who populated film and fictional crime stories inhabited interlocking and ambiguous worlds of multiple motives, guilt, and innocence. Often, nothing was truly as it appeared to be. Such worlds contrasted sharply with that of the first “police procedural” television series, Dragnet (1951–59, 1967–70), which originated as a radio series in 1949. Like those of many modern television police dramas, the plots of Dragnet were developed from real police cases that had few ambiguities. The procedural has served as the basic model for television police programs produced since the early 1950s.

Television crime drama has seen many significant changes over the years, but it has always rested on strong themes of social restoration and has contained considerably less ambiguity than either films or novel fiction. Crime drama episodes generally develop along predictable lines. First, good persons, families, or communities are disrupted, wounded, or trespassed upon—usually by acts of violence. Second, the police officers or detectives—in whom viewers have already developed confidence—aim to interrupt the activities of the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Finally, capture of the criminals restores the world to wholeness or restores the public’s faith in the guarantors of justice.

The most significant changes in television’s treatment of criminal justice have been shifts in the ways in which representatives of law and the moral order are shown to accomplish their larger tasks. Each new generation of crime dramas claims to represent greater “realism” than its predecessors, implying that previous programs were fraught with naive views of the subject.

Departures from Reality

Throughout television’s brief history, its programs have placed increasing emphasis on violent crimes, crimes that are aberrant or atypical, and crimes that are committed by strangers to their victims. All these trends were, for the most part, departures from the realities of crime in the United States. For example, most violent crime in the United States involves rather obvious methods and motives, and most violence occurs among persons who are not strangers to one another. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2022, the rate of such crimes has risen from 7.5 per 1,000 in 2021 to 9.7 per 1,000 in 2023.

Media researchers have also noted that for some time television crime dramas have favored stories about disproportionate numbers of criminal perpetrators who are professionals and wealthy. Perpetrators were often portrayed as powerful, intelligent, and ruthless figures who present “worthy opponents” for the investigators and law-enforcement officers who confront them. Television dramas also overemphasize the need for law-enforcement officers to use force to apprehend suspects.

Television’s increasing focus on violence, aberrant events, and challenging criminals also shifts viewer attention away from what has been termed the “order maintenance” function of policing. Most police activities, in most places—even more densely populated, higher crime areas—center around traffic control and nonspecific aid to the public, and otherwise to constabulary duties and petty thievery. Work in these areas is most typical of the average police officer’s experiences. Similarly, the activities of real-life private detectives, which generally center on suspected marital infidelity and business-related record searches, are generally much more banal than television would lead viewers to believe.

Crime Drama in a Different World

Since the 1970s, television crime dramas have tended to move away from beat and patrol policing, such as that depicted in the Adam-12 series (1968–75, created by Jack Webb, who had also done Dragnet), with its “service” orientation, and toward a focus on detective work and specialized policing. One explanation is that in the quest for more affluent audiences, networks may have favored shows with more educated, middle-class officers and quasi-officers, such as detectives and supervisors, handpicked task force officers, crime scene analysts, medical examiners, and forensic psychologists.

Crime dramas have also responded to the diversification of police forces. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Mod Squad (1968–73) and The Rookies (1972–76), African American and Latino police officers made their appearance. To some extent, this trend has followed a real-world trend. However, at the same time, it may be said that because crime dramas are still engaged in producing a healed, remoralized world for viewers, the diversification of the television squadroom reflects the desire to restore legitimacy to the police in the eyes of minority communities. The presence of nonwhite officers as regular characters, with as many dimensions as their white counterparts, has been lauded by most, but some critics see it as an attempt to neutralize criticism of the genre, in its previous depiction of African Americans and Latinos as criminals, gangsters, informants, and occasional victimization-prone “sidekicks,” such as Starsky and Hutch’s “Huggy Bear.”

The 1970s also saw the debut of women police officers and private investigators on television. The first program to focus on a woman was Police Woman (1974–78); followed by Get Christie Love! (1974–75); which featured a black woman officer; and then the highly rated Charlie’s Angels (1976–81). Although Charlie’s Angels at times seemed to be more about hairstyling and jiggling than combating crime, it had as its main characters women who had their police-academy hopes dashed by sexism in the roles they were assigned. It was the private detective agency that offered them real investigation and criminal pursuit opportunities. Cagney and Lacey (1982–88) moved the role of the television policewoman forward by relying less upon last-minute rescues by male officers and by directly confronting the role of gender in squadroom politics. Female victims of violence were also depicted in more depth—a departure from the tendency of earlier shows to soft-pedal the details and impact of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

Modern Detectives: New

Heroes

Cagney and Lacey was also a harbinger of the most significant change in crime dramas: the now-expected narrative interweaving of the characters’ personal and emotional lives with the traditional procedural format. First, the individual personalities of police officers in crime dramas have become more important to the progression of the story. In early shows, officers were loyal to the law in the abstract and to their colleagues in the criminal justice system. Personalities of television police officers were consistent with their assigned roles: They were competent and respectful, never excessive or emotional. There was an expected routine; the routine was there for a good reason and would inevitably lead to the capture of the criminal. For example, Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragnet could be interested in “just the facts” without seeming out of touch. Everyone was best served by sticking to the book and not encouraging histrionics, either by displaying emotion themselves or by encouraging it among victims and witnesses.

Since the 1950s, television police officers had been increasingly depicted as mavericks who are demonstrative about the moral transgressions that accompany serious crime, and the reserved personalities of earlier years were seen as inadequate. This trend was especially evident in the dramas of the 1970s, such as actor Robert Blake’s Baretta (1975–78) and Starsky and Hutch (1975–79). In this new generation of dramas, reserved police officers were seen as being too much “agency” figures. Officers were now depicted as having personal lives, as having emotional attachments to crime victims, and as being somewhat contemptuous of the law-and-order establishment, whose top brass might be seen as complacent, and whose red tape and constitutional protections of suspects tied their hands. However, the new protagonists, in their own way, held true to the old ideals of justice, if not its cogs and wheels.

The new norm of multidimensional officers also spawned several series featuring private, rather than government, detectives, which further distanced them from the protocols (and apparent drudgery) of rule-bound police agencies. Of these programs, The Rockford Files (1974–80) was the most successful. Rockford (James Garner) was not an agency man either, though he was also less cynical than his counterparts in the film noir and novels of an earlier era. Similarly, the series Mannix (1967–75) followed an iconoclastic private eye (Mike Connors), who strikes out on his own after clashing with his boss over rules, boundaries, and paperwork.

Even more lighthearted series of the era, such as CHiPs (1977–83), made their officers accessible and gregarious. Often the main characters in crime series of the 1970s had trademark affectations, such as Baretta’s habit of carrying a pet cockatoo on his shoulder, or Theo Kojak’s (Telly Savalas) penchant for sucking on lollipops in Kojak (1973–78)—a habit retained when a new Kojak series was launched in 2005. The best example of this tendency was the popular Columbo series (1971–78) featuring a Los Angeles police detective, Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk), with his distinctively rumpled raincoat, omnipresent cigar, dilapidated car, and offbeat technique of getting suspects to incriminate themselves through careless errors, rather than grilling them in the old-school, harsh-light, accusatory manner. A typical Columbo episode might have the detective rambling on about his car troubles, while the suspect—who is unaware of being a suspect—looks for any excuse to get away from him. Eventually, Columbo says something that ruffles the suspect’s composure.

Despite these trends, several successful series of the 1970s resisted these sorts of innovations. The second-longest-running police drama in American television history was Hawaii Five-O (1968–80), whose four main detectives were decidedly cut from the reserved, persevering Joe Friday cloth. The Streets of San Francisco series (1972–77) paired a seasoned, old-fashioned “street-smart” detective (Karl Malden) with a young, occasionally overeager college graduate (Michael Douglas), reflecting a real shift in the expectations of law-enforcement agencies, as well as a symbolic torch-passing.

Post-1970s Templates

Sociologist Todd Gitlin’s study of decision making among network executives, Inside Prime Time (1983), found that most executives regarded crime dramas as obsolete by the late 1970s. Just about everything that could be done in the form, it was thought, had been done. According to Gitlin, the first major new crime show of the 1980s, Hill Street Blues (1981–87), challenged that judgment. That show’s eventual success provided a new way of thinking about crime drama. Audiences would eventually change their expectations of those who represented law and order.

Hill Street Blues set a new template for television. It was unconventional in the number of returning characters it used and in offering several story lines in every episode. Moreover, it left many cases unresolved from week to week. Hill Street Blues also introduced to television drama a new tone of long-term pessimism about the ability of the police to make broad strides against serious crime. However, the bleakness of the show’s narratives was punctuated by moments of satisfaction regarding just deserts for specific offenders and hope for the healing of specific victims. Other successful series that followed took on a similar tone, investing hope in the small victories of individual characters rather than peace and justice in the abstract.

By the 1990s, personality flaws, squadroom conflicts, and personal struggles in the lives of police officers were becoming even more central. NYPD Blue (1993–2005) and Law & Order (1990–2010) featured officers who were active or recovering alcoholics and were self-absorbed and who had serious illnesses, hair-trigger tempers, womanizing tendencies, and troubled relatives. Generally, it was accepted that their personal-life entanglements made them vulnerable to projections of excessive zeal upon particular cases. All of these “imperfections,” far from disqualifying officers as symbolic agents of justice, only enhanced their dedication and skill in this respect.

Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993–1999) depicted the lives and work of detectives in Baltimore. It eschewed violent action segments and car chases altogether and reflected a more realistic view of homicide detective work—which was often plodding, frustrating, and slow. Homicide was not nearly as popular as Law & Order and NYPD Blue, both of which combined traditional appeals to audiences, blending casebook proceduralism with complex characters and near-existential resignation to a world of darkness.

In promotions for coming episodes, Law & Order often claimed that its stories are “ripped from the headlines,” but it would be more accurate to say that real high-profile crimes are used as touchpoints to explore contemporary legal issues. Half of each episode, usually, is devoted to post-arraignment developments—in which a district attorney makes charges stick, investigates further, negotiates a plea bargain, or takes the accused to trial.

Modern Crime Dramas and International Trends

Significant declines in crime in the United States that began during the 1990s did not temper television’s trend toward pessimism in its crime dramas. To some extent, this trend reflected police caseloads that remained historically high despite declining crime rates, due to new initiatives and changes in enforcement expectations. However, it is curious that almost no major crime drama series has backed away from the post-1970s message that almost nothing can be done about violence, or even petty crime. A small but revealing sign of this tendency is the fact that television shows set in New York City have continued to show the city’s famed subway cars as covered in graffiti and grime years after those conditions had waned. It appears that it is still necessary for many shows to put each case and character into a visual context that seems to say that criminality and chaos reign supreme.

Meanwhile, as television has gone global, so have crime dramas. While the United States exports its own shows to many countries, the crime dramas made in other countries usually match or exceed the popularity of American shows. There are both differences and similarities between American and foreign crime shows.

In Great Britain, popular crime dramas have tended to maintain the “hard-boiled” detective role at their centers, despite their tendency to take on other dimensions. Such shows have included The Bill (1984–2010), which centers on a single police precinct in London; The Sweeney (1975), about an elite unit assigned to armed robbery, which has been praised for its gritty realism; Cracker (1993–96), about a psychologically oriented detective; and, to some extent, the miniseries Prime Suspect (1991–2006), which has a female chief of detectives. In 2011, the United States attempted to run its own version of Prime Suspect, but after suffering low ratings, the series was cancelled after only one season.

Similarities to US dramas are especially evident in The Bill. This show started as a standard police procedural but gradually became more focused on the personal troubles of officers, problems of corruption, and interpersonal relationships among officers on the job. It also diversified its characters, including the addition of an openly gay officer. Detectives in British shows are often more organizationally deviant and single-minded in their pursuit of criminals than their American counterparts. At the same time, British shows, such as Z Cars (1962–78), were earlier in showing their officers drinking to excess, womanizing, and otherwise acting personally deviant against the image of the clean-cut law enforcers. In a unique twist, the network BBC One found a hit show in a contemporary reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's adventures of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. Set in twenty-first century London and first airing in 2010, Sherlock and Dr. Watson have continued to solve criminal mysteries to critical and viewer acclaim.

Socioeconomic class has also played a more overt role in British television, according to a study by Glen Creeber, creating conflicts for detectives (“inspectors” in Britain) who are upwardly mobile, introspective, and educated. These traits allow them to remain fiercely independent and even defiant, although they also wish to maintain their toughness and credibility on the street and among their working-class rank-and-file subordinate officers.

South America’s largest nation, Brazil, presents a different kind of contrast. There, television crime dramas have not always cast police as heroes. Sometimes they have been shown as self-interested or corrupt. Even sympathetic officers are shown as battling rampant corruption among their peers while trying to serve the public good.

In post-Soviet Russia, commercial television networks have broadcast American crime dramas, such as NYPD Blue, and created their own domestic shows, which are highly rated. Elena Prokhorova’s analysis of themes in Russian shows found similarities to the transformations that took place in US dramas during the 1980s and 1990s. Characters in Russian shows have become highly personalized, and deep pessimism about crime has arisen. As in reality, organized crime plays a significant role in the new Russian crime dramas. The hope of achieving justice amid burgeoning crime and violence is consistently reduced to small personal victories: islands of order amid chaos. As similar as this trend is to changes in the American shows, it also reflects a particular sort of cynicism as a backlash to the ideological messages of earlier Soviet crime dramas. Soviet programs were unabashedly optimistic. They tended to focus on embezzlement and presented dedicated, smart, and untroubled officers as representatives of the state.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there was some indication that US crime dramas were becoming more preoccupied with threats from organized crime, international syndicates, and transnational terrorism, as might be expected in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Along with shows that continued to focus on traditional topics such as interrogation techniques, including The Closer (2005–12), and investigating cases long since abandoned, such as Cold Case (2003–10), crime dramas, showing no sign of falling out of critical or viewer favor, also began to focus more heavily on the forensics of crime scene investigation. The show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–15) started off the trend, allowing spin-offs that included CSI: Miami (2002–12), CSI: New York (2004–13), and CSI: Cyber (2015–16), while shows such as Bones (2005–17), about a forensic anthropologist who learns about victims from studying their bones, built off of the interest garnered in this aspect of crime analysis. The successful series Criminal Minds (2005– ), on the other hand, deals with the subfield of criminal psychology and behavior, following a team in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit as they tackle gruesome perpetrators. Meanwhile, White Collar (2009–14) focused on organized crime, following the character Neal Caffrey, a white-collar criminal who is recruited to help the FBI catch other white-collar criminals in exchange for avoiding legal punishment and prison. Additionally, some crime dramas have taken on the increasingly significant topic of cybercrime, including Scorpion (2014– ), which is about a team of technology geniuses who work with the US Department of Homeland Security to defeat threats such as hackers. The decision to launch another police drama, Shades of Blue, on the network NBC with a high-profile star (Jennifer Lopez) in 2016 proves that crime dramas are not losing popularity. Perhaps there is something fundamental about the relationship between television, modernization, and the appeal of crime and police dramas worldwide.

In the 2020s, crime drama miniseries became popular and were often aired on premium channels. The Dropout (2022), starring Amanda Seyfried, depicts the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her biotech company, Theranos. The Staircase (2022), starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, tells the tale of crime novelist Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife after she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase. In Inventing Anna (2022), Julia Garner portrays Anna Sorokin (called Anna Delvey in the series), a legendary heiress who cons wealthy New Yorkers. While it contains some fictional elements, Under the Bridge (2024) depicts the brutal murder of teenager Reena Virk by her troubled friends.

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